Gallows Humour on a Sinking Ship

edgar roy green, 14.11.13

The butts of our own jokes?

So here's an image of a thing that happened. Probability suggests you've already seen it. Cameron et al talk about reducing public spending at a luxury banquet surrounded by a bunch of gold shit. I've seen it as a meme, and parodied by Daily Mash already, coz when you think about it, it's pretty fucking funny. The irony of it, the sheer ridiculousness of it, yeah, it's some funny shit.

Now I'm mos def not about to condemn comedy, the good comics see between the lines at the shit most people miss, and hold them up in all their ridiculous glory for us to laugh at, to see the folly in, and that's beautiful. But this image has become a staple. Whether it's a photo, or a story, or a video we're full to the brim right now with constant reminders of the ridiculous state of affairs we're in – i.e. that the people running shit have the gall to promote austerity while their lives are far from austere; like the traders opening their most expensive champagne and mocking the wall street marchers; like that hilarious video of David Cameron talking to a bunch of supermarket workers he's clearly got nothing but contempt for and someone gives him a cue that the England bracelet he's wearing has slipped up his sleeve and he needs to pull it down into shot so the country can see he's a football fan working man like the rest of us. Fucking hilarious shit.

Everywhere we look we can see evidence of the actions of these nasty bastards – from the deceitful , to the selfish and disgusting, to the hypocritical and the downright stupid. And we laugh and make jokes of it, and good ones too. I can lose hours to the daily mash. But what are we really laughing at? The fact that these rulers have nothing but contempt for us? That they steal from us and use it to maintain a social structure which benefits them and not us? Well, kind of, yeah.

There's two parties at present here, them and us. So who's the butt of all these jokes? Well I'm pretty sure it's not the ones with all that fucking gold.